Ready for Some Serious Life Planning? Get the Butcher Paper.

Know the piano is falling. Act while you can.

In a new book, Portland PR vet Lee Weinstein,58, outlines a life-planning technique involving huge sheets of butcher paper, in-depth written lists, and a keen awareness of mortality. Four tips:

1. Inventory your time.“If you calculate that you’re going to make it to, say, 89—well, that’s your launch date. Your launch date into death. What do you need to get done? This is a method to make sure that at 50 or 60 you don’t look around and say, WTF?”

2. Diagram those decades on a big sheet of butcher paper. “Our current version is six feet long. It’s a visual tool that allows you to see the major milestones of your life, all in one place.”

3. Write your big goals on sticky notes. “You can move the sticky notes from year to year. You’re still progressing before that big piano falls on you from the sky.”

4.Think of money as a tool. “Financial planners ask about big purchases, and when you want to retire. This allows you to take thatdeeper. What are your dreams for the 90 years you might spend on this planet? Do that first. Finances are the means that enable everything.”

Weinstein’s “intentional life planning workbook” is available via writeopenact.com.